Compact Anker 747 GanPrime Charger packs 150W of power [Review]

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The new Anker 747 GanPrime Charger pumps 150W of power through four ports for your devices.★★★★☆
The new Anker 747 GanPrime Charger pumps 150W of power through four ports for your devices.
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac

It’s not easy to get super-excited about chargers. But the current wave of ever-smaller and ever-more-potent gallium nitride (GaN) chargers gets the heart pumping a little faster than that or your average sleeping person, at least.

And if anyone’s keeping us awake and watchful regarding the charger market, it’s Anker.

The company recently held a special event to release six chargers in its new GaNPrime line. The first to arrive in my hands is the Anker 747 GaNPrime Charger, which pumps out 150W of power through four ports. But it’s just small enough to toss in your computer bag or knapsack without a second thought.

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Anker 747 GanPrime Charger packs 150W of power and 4 ports into compact next-gen package

Anker’s Series 7 GanPrime products look, ahem, primed for cutting-edge performance. GaN tech provides faster charging speeds in a smaller package than older silicone chargers can manage.

Anker recently released six new GaN chargers, three of which take the form of power adapters (Anker 735, Anker 737, and Anker 747 chargers). The 747 is the top of that line, with a total of 150W of power through four ports.

First, let’s look at the specs.

With four ports, the GanPrime 747 charger can charge four devices simultaneously. At the 150W power level, that certainly includes laptops, but you can also plug in tablets, smartphones, smart watches, earbud charging cases and more.

  • Output ports: 3 USB-C and 1 USB-A
  • Power per ports: USB-C: 100W max; USB-A: 22.5W max
  • Total output with multiple ports engaged: 150W

For comparison’s sake, the smaller Anker 737 offers three ports (2 USB-C, 1 USB-A) with the same per-port maximums and a total output of 120W. Ditto the 735, but with a 65W total max output.

Compact design

The 747 and its smaller siblings are designed to compete with native power adapters in size and shape. GaN chargers are always moving toward smaller and more powerful forms. The 747 measures about 6cm wide by 6.2cm tall and 3cm thick, roughly the thickness of an AirPods Pro charging case.

In fact, the size of the charger is startlingly small compared to the box it comes in.

And it’s a lot smaller than Apple’s 140W silicone charger that you comes with a 16-inch MacBook Pro — less than half the size. Hell, it’s even smaller than the 67W Apple power adapter, which has just one USB-C port.

High-speed smart charging

The 747 can charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro to a full battery in less than 2 hours and an iPhone 13 up to three times faster than an original Apple 5W charger, Anker said.

I found it charged my 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPhone 13 Pro efficiently. It jacked up my handset’s half-full battery capacity by 25% in just over 40 minutes, for example. It took the laptop from 60% to 85% in 22 minutes with sleep mode off and no apps running.

And the USB-A port is handy if you need a quicker boost than many third-party charging stands offer for items like earbuds charging cases, often 2.5W or 5W. The Anker’s USB-A port offers 22.5W.

The charger could get warm to the touch while charging multiple devices, but not in an alarming way. My research indicated a charger topping 122 degrees F (50 degrees C) should cause concern, but the 747 stayed well below that threshold.

And it charged faster than the motley assortment of other chargers I have lying around.

PowerIQ 4.0 and ActiveShield

Anker’s proprietary PowerIQ technology lets the charger recognize the devices being charged and dispense the maximum  power they can take.

The smarty-pants GaNPrime chargers feature PowerIQ 4.0 with Dynamic Power Allocation. It prioritizes the connected device with the lowest battery level. So you plug in your stuff and know the most desperate device will get help quickly.

Anker said Dynamic Power Allocation adjusts power distribution every 3 minutes, releasing any extra power output to the other devices being charged. According to the company: “When simultaneously charging two 67W [14-inch] MacBook Pros, our new GaNPrime charger will reduce the total charging time by 62 minutes.”

And another feature, ActiveShield, adds protection by intelligently monitoring temperature and adjusting power output to keep connected devices safe. The GaNPrime chargers monitor temps 3 million times daily.

You can measure a charger’s efficiency by how much electricity it wastes converting AC to DC. On average, the GaNPrime chargers are about 2% more efficient than previous Anker GaN power adapters, the company said.

The new GaN chargers cut carbon emissions by up to 30% over older ones, too, according to Anker.

The wall accessory with suction cups keeps the 747 from slipping out of a wall outlet.
The wall accessory with suction cups keeps the 747 from slipping out of a wall outlet.
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac

Nice packaging plus wall accessory

The 747 comes in stylized black box with “Series 7” written on the side, a photo on the front and lots of promotional details on the back. It’s standard-issue; neither super-premium nor barebones.

But when opening the box, I found that at least two of the chargers could have fit inside it. It’s almost like Anker planned for the charger’s compact size to be a pleasant surprise.

In the box you get the charger, its multilingual manual and the charger’s hard-rubber wall plate accessory. The latter helps stabilize the charger against a wall with a lot of little suction cups to help ensure it doesn’t fall out of the outlet (see photo).

And the wall plate accessory works well. Out of the box you might think those little suction cups aren’t going to do much against the charger’s moderate heft, but they do. The structure around the charger and the suction cups make for a secure fit in a wall outlet. And even without the accessory, the charger stayed in the outlet.

Pricing and availability

Several of the Anker Series 7 GaNPrime chargers became available on July 25, including the 737 for $94.99 and the 735 for $59.99.

But the company said the Anker 747 charger would be available for preorder on Amazon or Anker for $109.99, with shipping late in Q3. But we found it “sold out” on Anker and currently available on Amazon, so maybe you’ll get lucky.

And by the way, it comes in black/gray, champagne/gold and white/silver color combinations, though not all may be available yet.

Where to order/preorder: Amazon or Anker

★★★★☆

Anker provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.

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